true self

How do we get to that divinely created wondrous being that lies underneath the false self? A big part I have come to understand is knowing that I am already my true self. It is whole and fully who I am meant to be. It is who God made me to be when He created me. What I struggle with is .... who is that?

I began exploring this a bit last summer when I was at a retreat and a spiritual director suggested that I stop staring at what was not - namely no intimacy with the Lord - and started staring at other parts of me - the things that I am. Who am I as a woman, wife, mother, teacher etc... How does my body honor the Lord? The last one is where I started ... but initially I didn't know how to look beyond the false self and my list regarding my body was filled with horrors and hatred. I prayed and asked God for another idea... and one popped into my head. 'How do I experience the world?... Thru the 5 senses! So I began to write down what I love to smell and taste and touch and hear and see. It was like a kindergarten list exploring the 5 senses. But it changed something in me ... I was finally able to see past all my shit and see some of the things God placed in me that I desired and loved. I wrote down that I love to smell lilacs and see the wind blowing in the trees and that I love the taste of cheesecake and the sound of spring peepers and I love to feel lambs ear - a fuzzy plant ... and my heart truly rejoiced and worshiped and I was able to thank God for making me to like these things. No one else has a constellation of 'likes' just like me, and this is just a small part of what makes me unique.

I think my above story illustrates a verse that probably would never be utilized in this situation like I'm about to use it right now ... 'to think on whatever is pure and holy and lovely' ... Thats all that I was doing -- thinking about the ways that God made me lovely - but it didn't make me look at myself it made me look at God and give Him glory.

I once read an Elizabeth Elliot book, Let Me Be a Woman, I don't remember much about it these many years later but one thing that has stuck with me was this: a jellyfish glorifies God by just being a jellyfish. A jellyfish doesn't have to 'work' at giving God glory, it just does by being what it was designed to be. That got me thinking even then ... how does a human glorify God? Can it be so simple ... that me just being myself is what brings God glory? The problem at the time and even still 20 years later is that perhaps I have no idea who I really am.

I have read through the many lists of 'who I am in Christ', I have prayed through them and asked God to teach me about the ones I really don't believe. I have confessed my unbelief and prayed 'in' the truth. For a season I pondered all of that. But this is deeper. I don't want to say that this - who I am in Christ list - is generic because that is simply the wrong word, but it certainly isn't specific to me either. One thing that Merton stresses about the true self is that as I understand and live in my union with Christ more fully I do not become less me ... I become MORE of myself. I don't dissolve... as Christ is more fully revealed in my life... no its more like I blossom into myself.  And the Lord doesn't want us to dissolve! All of the human story is about God wanting a relationship with His creation. If He had wanted robots He would have created us that way. No He wants us to be what he created us to be - our unique selves. The problem is that we are so stuck living in our false self ... and we keep giving Him the shadow and not the real us.

So who am I? If I am fearfully and wonderfully made ... why does my soul still NOT know it very well? How do I learn about this unique created being? Do I need to learn to live in union with the Lord first or is it a both/and? I know I can't sit and ponder just my 5 senses but I am still unsure how to ponder my uniqueness as a woman, daughter, sister, wife, and mother... It seems like it should be simple, but man it feels scary and hard.